David Le Clercq

My Autobiography                      

"Is this chair for me dad"?              Click on pictures to enlarge 

Hello my name is David Le Clercq and I am from Planet Earth.  I am young looking for my age but only look forty five. Well, give or take a few years or MORE I hear you cry. Cheeky!

With nearly a full head of hair and a charming personality, you would take me first to the barbers for a decent hair cut. Rick is my hairdresser, but then you would only need to know this if you wanted a real snazzy haircut in the future.

I would insist that you laughed at all of my pathetic jokes. My sense of humour has kept me young and all of my dear friends living miles away from me. You cannot get much further than Australia. Ken and Mary only know too well. Sad!

But then, you can't always be the man-of-the-moment and hope to be able to please all of the people all of the time.

Who said that? Well I have just said it; aren't you paying attention out there?

I was born before the Second War in a nursing home, in Albert Road, Ashford, Kent and not under a gooseberry bush as Mother banded about at the time! Otherwise I would have ended up with  pricks all over me!

We all lived in Sandyhurst Lane, Boughton Aluph,  Nr. Ashford, Kent. Our bungalow was known as ‘Braehead’ because it was at the head of a small brook, which ran along the bottom of the lawn and divided the property from a very large Georgian house opposite, owned by an elderly lady with the surname of Marshall.

    Braehead from the rear during a hard winter

My parents had a chicken farm, selling eggs to Stonegates, a company who collected eggs for selling on to shops and other outlets. Our 'estate' consisted of ten acres of prime agricultural land with a south facing aspect.

When Father purchased in 1935 it was already a chicken farm and had a small bungalow as the main residence.  When I say small, it was really small. Just two bedrooms, a bathroom/toilet, kitchen and dining/living room.

Father modernised the bungalow by the addition of a scullery with larder, a sitting room and a veranda. Father's profession was in civil engineering and I understand that the extensions were built on massive foundations similar to the dams he constructed abroad!

For me to be brought up in the country with one other brother and two sisters was not easy. At the outbreak of the second world war in 1939, Father's business collapsed and he ended up financially ruined.

Sister Anne and I

During the war, my half-brother Peter went into the REME and Father was an Officer in the local Home Guard looking after West Ashford. Towards the end of the war as an Acting Major

Father in the Home Guard

Father grew all the vegetables and enough potatoes (over one ton) for the needs of the household during the year despite the rabbits attacking the fresh greens as fast as he could grow them. Hitler was enough to contend with and we didn't need rabbits to add to our troubles. Also we were inundated with rats and mice and these were dealt with, in the main, by some dozen cats and a dog. I can only assume that the cats fed on mice and what they could find along the way. Chicken, geese and ducks were kept for our own consumption with a few Light Sussex cockerels being dressed for sale at Christmas. These were fattened using capon pellets!

I recall one incident when my father had dressed a pheasant, having left it to hang for around five days when the cats decided it was just right for them. When father caught up with the cats, there was all hell and I was reliable informed at the time,  that a few cats were relieved of parts of their bodies in the chase to get away from my father. Such was survival in those days. It was truly them or us.

During the war, yes the Second World war, we had to make do with our heavy dining-room table for protection. Some people had Morrison shelters which served the same purpose but protected them better.

Towards the end of the war we were issued with an Anderson shelter, which between us we managed to install partly below ground level. Except for a bomb on the lawn; the hole can still be seen, and a doodle-bug falling close to the bungalow, bringing down the veranda and most of the ceilings, my childhood was spent watching the action in the skies and the many hundreds of bombers and fighter carrying out their daily sorties to Mr Hitler’s homeland. Ashford was one of the major railway works in the country and Hitler had something evil against it remaining there! We did on one occasion have a large number of troops pass through our property and mother foolishly volunteered to make them tea. We live two hundred yards from the main road and our electricity supply was fed via a ‘piece of wet string’. By the time any power reached us it wasn’t worth having! No wonder the kettle took hours to boil and by the time the tea was ready, the war was over!

I started school at Kennington Primary School, near Ashford, but because of the war and the constant bombardment of Ashford, was taken away from the school for nearly a year. It was at the same time that I was suffering from double pneumonia and pleurisy. Treatment those days, was to wrap you in a poultice applied with a hot sticky substance. The idea, I believe, was to keep your chest warm, never mind keeping the germs within!  I was stripped frequently from the dressing before a new lot was applied. It was very painful on the chest because of the large number of hairs being pulled out every time the plaster was removed. Ouch!

When I was fit and well again, I was installed at a little school in Westwell at the foot of the Pilgrims Way linking Winchester with Canterbury, a route of some eighty miles. Here we had two classes of fifteen each with a curtain dividing the two classes. At both ends of the room were tortoise stoves to keep us warm.

Westwell was some three miles from home and we had to walk no matter what the weather. Some of the route crossed fields and it was no joke in the winter when we suffered our fair share of snow.

My own little igloo. My parents couldn’t even afford a front or rear door to provide all round comfort for me.

The winter of 1947 was so bad that we could not get out of the bungalow for snow piled as high as the guttering. It was like living in an igloo with brick interior! On the occasions that we arrived in school soaking wet, we changed into dressing gowns supplied by teacher and our clothes were placed around the stove to dry out. Back in dry clothing later on and then a long walk in the rain or snow back home to be dried out again.

I will never know how my mother found all of the food we enjoyed but I can never remember a day without a good hearty meal. A lot consisted of steamed suet puddings of onion and bacon, treacle and steak and kidney.

One didn't need a lot of ingredients, the suit pudding filled one up. Vegetables were always plentiful from the garden so we never went hungary, just went to the toilet more often than most! Porridge was the order of the day for breakfast during the week with fish on Sundays. A nice kipper or smoked haddock made a change from a normal breakfast routine.

Bedtime was always at 6.30pm and 8.00pm when in my teens. If you did anything wrong during the day,  it was bed at 6.30pm summer and winter. During the war years it was light until midnight in the summer and an  early bed time was shear hell. Can you imagine lying awake during all those light hours hearing your brother and sisters outside enjoying themselves.

I cannot ever remember a time that we were allowed in the sitting room with our parents. Chum, our dog was the only other living creature allowed to join them. We had to do everything together in the kitchen and on the large scrubbed kitchen table if necessary. That meant homework or any hobbies we had. Imagine four children with an age difference of seven years all trying to do their own thing together. If we ever started an argument or fight between us, then Mother would send Chum out from the sitting room to sort us out. He had this magic power of immediately effecting discipline upon us. It was something I later found out, was to do with the sharpness of his  teeth!

     Chum and me. He wasn't always this friendly. He could suddenly turn on you for no reason at all

In those days there was no such thing as double glazing or ceiling insulation. When the fire was eventually roaring a volume of cold air passed across the floor some six inches high causing extreme chilblains on your feet. When the fire died down, everyone moved towards it to keep warm until it roared back into action again. It would have been easier for all concerned, if a track had been laid across the floor for easy movement of the armchairs to and from the fire. Imagine cold air coming through the badly fit windows and under the doors during the peak of winter. At least in bed one was shielded by the blankets from the blasts of cold air from the nooks and crannies in the building. We did have company during the night, whilst asleep, from the mice chewing through the skirting boards. It was not only in the Mickey Mouse films that they had mice holes; all the country houses experienced them in some form or other.

I spent most of my time in a shed at the top of the garden and even did most of my homework there. It was bitterly cold in the winter as was most of the house except for the kitchen and sitting room. Water froze in our glasses on the window sills and when going to bed, you breathed heavily and quickly to get  some form of heat into the bed.

We slept four to a room with my brother sleeping with me and my two sisters in separate beds. We two slept head to feet and since we only bathed once a week our heads were always turned towards the outside of the bed. The person sleeping closest to the window had the full draught from the windows. My brother, who ate a lot of cabbage, frequently had bowel trouble and this, added to his smelling feet, was not a nice experience for a clean living boy like me. He always recited a little poem which went something like this after his fowl act:

"A f*** is a very common thing

It gives the body ease

It warms the bed in winter

and chloroforms the flees"

It is no small wonder that I have never needed to take tablets or medicine or have been seriously ill throughout my life after this initiation!

Getting up had to be carried out very quickly before the nether regions began to drop off!

The bathroom was shared by seven persons and my mother insisted that only the Daily Telegraph newspaper was to be used for toilet paper. This had the effect of blocking the toilet  from time-to-time causing all manner of problems which I will not go into. There was the Daily Mirror and Express, which was also read and these, being of thinner pages, would not have clogged the 'works'. Unfortunately, Mother was a snob and couldn't  bear anything other than the Telegraph wiping her bottom.

My friend Dennis lived just down the road in a small semi with outside toilet consisting of a double seated 'thunderbox'. If there were two wanting to go at the same time, you just sat next to each other with a clothes peg on your nose. The smell was unbearable - no flush toilets in those days. If you had lit a match, then that would have been the end of civilisation as we know it today - bumless!

The kitchen and water was heated by a small stove, which if my memory serves me correct, was always making terrible noises, because of the furring up of the pipe work, due to the poor quality of water in the region

A bucket of coal always had to be ready for when the scuttle emptied during the day and this meant a journey up to the coal shed in all weathers. Next to the coal shed was the copper house where Mother did the Monday wash every week. The fire below the copper had to be lit an hour or so before hand and water carted from the house to be heated. What a life for the women in those days. Many a time Mother hung out the washing and because of the shear weight of clothes, the line just snapped. The washing ending up getting dirty again!

I attended Kennington church as a young boy but this didn't last long after mother fell out with the vicar. I was transferred to Westwell church and inaugurated in the choir.

My sister Jill, Monty, my brother Robin and me

It was here that Montegue Roberts the organists, became friendly with the family. Monty, as he liked to be referred to, started teaching three of us the piano but my interests were elsewhere. Monty had an immaculate pre-war Morris Minor Tourer which required regular plug cleaning. The car sat on the lawn in view of my piano lessons and my thoughts were with driving not playing at the time. I soon found, that if I suggested cleaning the plugs of the car, my lessons would be shortened. What a stupid mistake at that time, for all you know I may have been on the world stage with my piano playing!

At around twelve years old I was allowed to drive the car around the house. On one occasion I placed a piece of wood between the break and clutch peddle so as to depress the accelerator pedal, which on this model of car, was in the centre. I started the car engine and off we went,  at what was then high speed. Imagine me, as a youngster trying to steer the car around the house and at the same time trying to kick the piece of would away from the pedals. It would have been easier to have switched off the engine but I didn't think of that at the time. Panic took over

Mother would keep me busied throughout my long summer holidays by making me walk with my brother or sister into Ashford to take sandwiches for my Father's lunch. Why she could not make them before he set off to his office I will never understand. The return journey was seven miles. This was not the all of it. If Mother had run out of a packet of butter or margarine, she would send me off to Kennington Stores over a mile away. Father would always insist that I walk across a small bridge over a brook.

One day  I decided to take a short cut and on returning home had a slipper across my back-side. Father had spotted me through his binoculars. This was not the only time I had been observed doing something wrong through binoculars, but more about that later.

!My primary school finished when I passed for scholarship to the Ashford Grammar School. The prize between the two of us competing at our tiny school, was a Kodak Brownie camera or a suit of armour. I chose the camera whilst John took the suit of armour. What must it be worth today. Not the camera you fool!

Believe it or not, on the first day of school, I didn't know the difference between a text book and exercise book. No wonder I was punished for the first few days for writing my notes in ‘Pears Plowman’!  Discipline was severe and I had two masters who would hit you across the backside with a cricket bat or hit you over the head with a hockey stick. If you weren't paying attention a board duster took your pen away or crash landed on your wrist. They must have learnt their accuracy at projecting missiles from their university days. Another form of punishment was being taken down to the gym and having a few lashes of the climbing ropes across your backside. Some of the kinder masters would just ask you to hold out your hand and give you a few strokes across the palms of your hand. School therefore was not a happy place for me but during the summer I managed to play cricket everyday.

My hobbies at the time were into electronics, building radios and amplifiers, photography and Air Cadets. Suffice to say, I was too scared to join the unit in gliding practice but enjoyed everything else about the  Royal Air force. My sister was always playing her radio and listening entirely to Radio Luxemburg. This caused constant grief amongst the rest of the family so I set about building a modulator on the same frequency as Luxemburg to cancel out the local transmission. It worked but was illegal and still is. Out in the country you could almost do as you liked. In this respect, against my Father's wishes, the Police granted me a permit to hold a  firearm. I imagined myself as John Wayne in the Wild West using rabbits instead of Red Indians for firing practice.

I purchased a high-powered two-two  rifle which was dangerous within one mile and could penetrate an Anderson shelter skin. I was allowed three hundred, yes three hundred rounds of ammunition but could only purchase two hundred rounds at any one time. The Police would regularly inspect my paperwork and where I kept the firearm and ammunition. The latter was always stored under the floor boards. Can you imagine getting away with holding a firearm these days. I can recall having had an enormous number of 78 rpm records given to me, worth today a lot of money. Those I didn't like I placed ten or more together and fired a shot through them to see how powerful the rifle was. I have forgotten what the record (pun) was at the time for the number of records one shot would go through.

Christmas generally started with an invasion on Christmas Eve of three uncles, two aunts and a few nieces and nephews down from Hersham in Surrey. Eighteen in all including our own family; all having to be fed, watered, provided with sleeping facilities and the use of only one toilet. The bungalow had no central heating and was like an igloo first thing in the morning. Makeshift wooden toys were the order of the day for presents and that included dolls for the girls My bed generally consisted of sleeping on six dining room chairs. Breakfast was in relays and was quite orderly because of the considerable delays in getting to the bathroom. Lunch at around 4 p.m. was a banquet. No joking; massive amounts of every known food piled up o the ceiling. It was not unknown for my brother to consume twelve roast potatoes together with at least five vegetables and massive amounts of chicken or goose. The Christmas puddings were always laced with a five shilling or half-crown together with some three penny joeys. One ate many slices until all of the coins were located!

Easter - Cadbury's Milk Tray

Dug holes. hand grenades,  amnesty rifles, revolvers, etc

No toys Sundays. no playing outside of grounds to house. Toys always had to packed away by eight. Meccano

Birthday parties - outside treasure hunt - massive amounts of food trifles jellies buns iced

Tree climbing

War - Italian prisoners digging GPO trench gave me 14 pound hammer which I can still remember dragging across the field. It was still there when I left home in 1967.

All I learnt during my five years of French were the entire vocabulary of verbs. Our teacher at the Grammar School was ancient and we all wished that she had been like the teacher in the secondary modern school opposite!

Wishful thinking......

  click on photo!